1/6 




Qass-JEi-li: 



/ 



A MEMOIR 



s. 



OF 



WILLIAM KELBY 



/ / 7 



-* ' ' 



LIBRARIAN OF THE NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY 



BY 



JOHN AUSTIN STEVENS 



J?EAD BEFORE THE SOCIETY, NOVEMBER 1, 1898 



NEW YORK 

PRINTED FOR THE SOCIETY 

1898 



^^^ 

^ 






'^lfi06 




MEMOIR OF WILLIAM KELBY 



Mr. President, Members of the Society ; 

Ladies, Gentlemen : 

Amid the excitements of this memorable sum- 
mer, when each day brought with it the stirring 
news of some national triumph or personal disaster, 
the members of this Society, scattered in their va- 
cations, were shocked by the sad intelligence of 
the death of its worthy Librarian, Mr. William 
Kelby, whose entire life from early manhood had 
been passed within its precincts and in its service — a 
service in the exercise of which he was not only fa- 
miliar to every member of our Society, but to those 
of kindred institutions throughout the land ; a ser- 
vice which is justly held to be deserving of some- 
thing more than a mere minute on our records. 
Some memoir of this life and of this service it is 
my melancholy privilege to submit ; a privilege be- 
cause of my long and intimate association with him 
in that branch of historic research which was his daily 
habit— the story of New York City from its early 
Dutch beginning to its last metropolitan expansion. 

William Kelby was born September 12, 1841, 
at Portland, a town in County Sligo, Ireland. His 
father, Thomas Kelby, and his mother, Margaret 
Mathews, both belonged to what is termed the 
Englishry of Ireland. The name Kelby is some- 
what uncommon. It is derived from the market 



town of Kelby, near Sleaford, in Kestevan, Lincoln- 
shire, England. They were both of that so-called 
Scotch-Irish race which through the last century 
was a marked factor of the American colonies, and 
in the breedinof of that American race which is now 
beginning to take a leading part in the shaping of 
the destiny of the world. The Scotch-Irish, as a 
distinctive body of people, originated in the migra- 
tion from Scotland to the north of Ireland in the be- 
ginning of the seventeenth century. They settled 
upon lands confiscated to the English crown during 
the various rebellions of this turbulent isle. Their 
home is the Province of Ulster. To this migration 
was joined one from England, which settled to the 
south and west of this Province and in the neigh- 
boring Province of Connaught, which passed under 
British rule at the same period. Sligo in Connaught 
is one of the most important of the seaboard towns. 
These migrations from England and Scotland held 
to either the Non-Conformist or the Presbyterian 
faith. This hardy and independent people, whose 
life for a century was a continual struggle with 
their Celtic neighbors, were confirmed in their pos- 
sessions by Cromwell, and later by William of 
Orano-e, as a maintenance and defence of the Prot- 
estant relieion and of the Protestant succession to 
the English crown against the Bourbon alliance of 
the Roman Catholic continental powers. To the 
dangers of their situation in a bitterly hostile re- 
gion, not less than to their origin, the Scotch-Irish 
and the Englishry of Ireland alike owe those traits 
of independence and tenacity which are their 
marked characteristics at home and abroad; and 
which were dominant in the nature and character 
of our late friend. 

4 



While foreign in birth, William Kelby was thor- 
oughly American in training. His parents emi- 
grated to this country, arriving in New York in 
June, 1842. Their son William was then in his 
second year. They first settled at Hyde Park, 
Dutchess County, in this State. Thence they re- 
moved to Saratoga Springs, and later crossed the 
frontier to Canada West. Returnine to New York 
City in July, 1847, they made their permanent 
home here. Here the father entered into the em- 
ployment of this Society. And here the son got 
the beginnings of knowledge in the public schools 
of the City ; the beginnings only, for in fact his ac- 
quirements were the result of his own self-directed 
labors. For he was but sixteen years of age when 
he was withdrawn from school and entered into the 
service of this Society, in which his father was then 
engaged. This was on the 7th of July, 1857, since 
when, until his death on the 27th of July of the 
present year, 1898, William Kelby was uninter- 
ruptedly engaged in the various services of this 
institution, and in the arrangement and care of its 
many treasures. In any measure of the value of 
these services and of the knowledge required for 
their proper performance, it must be remembered 
that the New York Historical Society is not a lit- 
erary institution only, but a veritable museum of 
antiquity and an extensive gallery of art. The 
material care of these departments developed his 
technical knowledge ; and their arrangement, cata- 
logue, and display were the occasion for a constant 
research over a wide field. The ereat Abbott col- 
lection of Egyptian antiquities, with its sacred bulls, 
its rich sarcophagi, its scarab ornaments, and its 
thousand other relics of the days of the Pharaohs, 

5 



may be instanced as one of the subjects to which 
he gave years of study and care. The Mexican 
and American Indian collections are equally curious, 
and to us as valuable. The gallery of paintings, 
particularly rich in its showing of Dutch art, gave 
opportunity for the acquisition of information and 
the development of taste in a different, though in 
part cognate, direction, as historical portraiture is 
a special feature of this priceless collection, while 
the paintings in the Bryan department afford study 
of art in general from its renaissance in Europe. 
With the help of Dunlap's History of the Fine 
Arts in America, Mr. Kelby had acquainted him- 
self with the history of painting ; and he was famil- 
iar with the best examples of our art, from Pratt 
and Stuart, from Smybert and Malbone, to Baker 
and Huntington, many of which adorn the walls 
of this institution, and make known to us, not only 
the features and costumes of the worthies of old, 
but the progress of art in this western world. 

The purpose of the gentlemen who, under the 
influence of John Pintard, claruni et veiierabile 
nomeri, founded this Society was clearly set forth 
in their address to the public. It was to gather 
together everything that could in any manner throw 
light upon the history of New York. Their own 
efforts, continued during the first quarter of a cen- 
tury, resulted in a collection incomparably rich, and 
which to-day, when early Americana, printed or 
manuscript, are priceless, would be impossible of 
achievement. During the early period this pur- 
pose of the Society, thus formulated, was strictly 
adhered to. Mr. Peter Augustus Jay was urgent 
in its support, saying: "A file of American news- 
papers is of far more value to our design than all 

6 



the Byzantine Histories." And Mr. Verplanck in- 
sisted that the Society should collect every book, 
pamphlet, chart, map, or newspaper that threw 
light on the history of the State, its cities, its towns, 
or the history of its literature. These were Mr. 
Kelby's fixed views, and this purpose, as originally 
declared by the founders, was never lost sight of 
by him. 

The newspaper collection begun by Mr. Jay has 
been a constant source of solicitude both as to its 
preservation and its increase. Mr. Kelby had it 
ever in mind as the subject of his early study. He, 
and perhaps he alone, was aware of its precise con- 
dition and of the gaps in its files. It was to him a 
personal grief that the fine Emmet collection, 
which would have rounded out our files for the las 
century, should have passed to the Lenox Library, 
and be destined to be swallowed up by that levia- 
than, the new Public Library. 

The beginnings of the manuscript collection are 
also due to the efforts of individuals. To John 
McKesson we owe the Journals of the Provincial 
Congress and Convention and of the Committee 
of Safety. To Robert Fulton, the Gates papers ; 
and here again regret must be expressed that this 
extensive and varied mass of Revolutionary docu- 
ments is not completed by the Letter and Order 
Books of General Gates, preserved by Dr. Emmet, 
to whom they came by inheritance from his distin- 
guished grandfather, Gates' friend and legal ad- 
viser. The Society's collection of manuscripts con- 
sists of the Alexander, de Peyster, Duer, Gallatin, 
Gates, Lamb, Lloyd, McLane, Miller, Osgood, 
Reed, Steuben, Stevens, and Stirling papers. 
The Kemble papers, printed by the Society, are 

l7] 



the property of the family. The Thomson, the 
Lee, and the Deane papers belong to individuals. 
It was a sorrow of Mr. Kelby that the valuable 
collection of Livingston manuscripts, which be- 
longed to the late Mr. S. L. M. Barlow, was not 
secured for our library. There are papers in this 
collection concerning New York in the Revolution 
not to be found elsewhere. 

While original documents of this character were 
Mr. Kelby's delight, he, of course, made himself 
familiar with all the early printed histories of the 
New Netherlands and of the New York Province — 
Colden's History of the Five Nations, William 
Smith's New York prior to 1762, and Thomas 
Jones's gossipy account of New York in the Rev- 
olutionary period, recently published with elaborate 
notes by our learned associate, Mr. Edward F. de 
Lancey, under the auspices of the Society, as well 
as with the later local works of Riker and of 
Thompson. 

But even of printed works his preference was for 
those which reproduced the documents themselves, 
or with notes explanatory of the text. Of these, 
the most important to our New York historians 
must always be Dr. O'Callaghan's great compila- 
tion, the Documentary History of the State, with 
illustrative calendars. Here we find all the official 
reports, with their careful detail of the state of the 
Province in every political or economic feature, to 
the London Board of Trade or to the Secretary for 
the Colonies, and minutes of licenses and other 
minor ordinances which throw a side-light upon the 
habits of the people. On the completion of this 
vast work, the Corporation of the City of New York 
employed Dr. O'Callaghan to edit the City Records, 

8 



beginning with the Dutch Records of New Amster- 
dam, which he had translated and prepared for the 
press when the exposure of the Tweed methods in 
city finances stopped further progress ; ahhough the 
reading of proof had begun. These records were 
later edited by Mr. Fernow, who has patiently fol- 
lowed in the same line of study. They were pub- 
lished in 1897, in seven volumes, under the title of 
the Records of New Amsterdam, 1653 to 1674. 
They comprise the minutes of the Court of Burgo- 
meisters and Schepens. The original documents 
are preserved in the dingy archive-room of the City 
Hall, where Mr. Kelby passed many an hour, 
through the courtesy of his friends, Mr. Valentine 
and Mr. Twomey, who in turn were the respected 
clerks of the Common Council, and both with some- 
thing of the taste of the antiquary. Here, from the 
disorderly and dusty mass, Mr. Kelby culled infor- 
mation in vast variety : the opening of streets and 
squares ; the extension of the water-front, and a 
thousand details of City life ; the water-supply from 
the old Tea-pump; even the civic feasts of the City 
fathers, with their accompanying bonfires and pub- 
lic toast-drinkings on such high occasions as Guy 
Fawkes' Day, the raising of a Liberty Pole, or the 
reception of a royal Governor at the Province Arms. 
With Dr. O'Callaghan Mr. Kelby's relations 
were most friendly. The old gentleman invariably 
dropped in at the Library for a chat, and always 
returned to Albany with some hint or clue to the 
object of his immediate research. Mr. Fernow, I 
doubt not, would gladly admit his own obligations 
in the same line. And here may be noticed the 
late important contributions to our stock of genea- 
logical information in the Calendar of Wills, 1626- 

9] 



1836, on record at Albany, published by the Society 
of Colonial Dames of the State of New York, and 
compiled by Mr. Fernow ; a publication which it is 
to be hoped mxay be followed by one similar from 
our New York Wills. 

The wretched manner in which the official docu- 
ments of our City have been cared for, and their al- 
most entire inaccessibility to the general searcher, 
have been a matter of painful concern to all of us who 
take pride in our past. Too practical to complain 
without suggesting" a remedy, Mr. Kelby proposed 
some years ago the appointment of a Record Com- 
mission, to consist of two lawyers and one layman, 
to serve without salary (he willing to be the lay 
member), to formulate a plan for the preservation of 
all the records in the various counties of this State. 
His plan, in brief, was : the Record Commissioners 
to be authorized by the Legislature, in their ap- 
pointment, to communicate with every County Clerk 
in the State, and to file with the Commissioners a 
report of the records in their possession. If, as is 
the case in this County, the Clerk could not make 
such report, the County Clerk to receive authority 
from the Commissioners to employ the necessary 
clerical assistance to make a calendar of every docu- 
ment and record ; arranging the manuscript chrono- 
logically and sub-alphabetically in bound volumes. 
And he further proposed that the City should erect 
a fire-proof building, to be known as the Record 
Building, in which every document of this County 
prior to 1850 should be deposited. 

Mr. Kelby's immediate aim was to get access to 
the early colonial documents which are stored, as 
though they were merchandise, in the lower part of 

10 



the present County Court, packed in a hetero- 
geneous mass, as are those also in the brown-stone 
Court-House in the City Hall Park, At one time he 
thought the project could be carried out, and it re- 
ceived the endorsement of the lesfal orentlemen of 
the City ; but no one of them took enough interest 
in it to draft a bill for the action of the Legislature — 
rather a sad example of the apathy of the modern 
lawyer to matters of historic interest. This is cer- 
tainly not the spirit which animated Jay and Benson 
and Morris and Verplanck — that spirit to which we 
owe our existence as a Society. 

But while interested in all these various subjects, 
Mr. Kelby never faltered in his fealty to his life 
study — the City of New York and its history. The 
one salient point in his nature was his profound love 
for New York, his pride in its history, in its growth, 
in its magnificence. He loved every stone in it, as 
Johnson or Lamb loved London. He could re- 
construct it to his mind's eye at any of the periods 
of its picturesque existence, with every detail of 
square and street and building, from the old Bowl- 
ing Green, the Commons, the Gardens of Vauxhall 
and the Ranelagh ; the Strand, the Maiden and 
Petticoat Lanes, and the Street of the Beaver, with 
their buildings of Dutch gables, to the parks, the 
boulevards, and the towering structures of the 
modern city ; whether when the Dutch clustered 
about the old Stadt-Huys (strange mixture of tav- 
ern and council chamber) and traded on the Bridge, 
or when the rude palisades at Wall Street divided 
the city proper from the Outwards, or when the 
builders of the City Hall in wise economy used sand- 
stone for the rear instead of the marble of the front 

II 



structure ; no one then supposing that the city- 
would outgrow that Hmit. 

His knowledge of the City as a school-lad began 
with the new era, that half-century which has just 
now elapsed since the great Irish exodus after the 
famine of '48 set the pace for the rapid strides which 
New York has since taken. What changes in the 
physical appearance and the domestic economy of 
the people in this period ! Half a century ago the ne- 
gro enjoyed the monopoly of nearly all the in-door 
and many of the out-door occupations. Every wait- 
er, every cook and coachman in the private houses 
or hotels ; every barber, bootblack and oysterman, 
and a large number of the cartmen and the steve- 
dores on the wharves, were of ebony hue — men of 
pure African race, as the Mulatto were then rare. 
It is curious to notice how this colored race grad- 
ually gave place to the incoming Irish, how they in 
turn were in great measure supplanted by Germans ; 
and these again have given way to Italian and 
Asiatic successors — Chinese and Japanese. In 
those ruder days the streets of the city were the un- 
disputed domain of the boys. Young Kelby be- 
came early familiar with every nook and cranny, not 
only of the immediate neighborhood of his home, 
but of that older New York into the history of 
which he was beginning to delve. 

Mr. Webster once remarked that the true sources 
of history are newspapers and letters. They retain 
the very flavor of the time. In these branches of 
literature the collection of this Society is especially 
rich, the file of newspapers of the last century — of 
the New York Gazette, the Post Boy, the Mercury, 
the New York yoiirnal, and later the Packet and 

12 



the Advertiser — being nearly complete from Brad- 
ford's publication, in 1725, to the end of the Colo- 
nial period ; while its manuscript-room contains a 
large mass of documents and of letters of infinite 
variety. These newspapers young Kelby set him- 
self to index by names and subjects, a work which 
for many years occupied every spare moment of 
his attendance upon the visitors to the rooms of 
the Society or the clerical work with which he was 
charged. No one who has not seen one of the 
great number of folio sheets of manuscript used in 
this vast undertaking can realize its colossal pro- 
portions. Taking each name and subject in turn, 
he followed each to the end and beyond the cen- 
tury, through the file of each newspaper in turn. 
Thus any student following the references made on 
any given subject may exhaust all the knowledge 
on that subject to be gotten from the newspapers 
during that entire period, covering more than one 
hundred years. It is needless to say that this con- 
stant and reiterated study not only made Mr. Kelby 
familiar with the history of the City in every minute 
detail, but his manuscript notes enabled him at any 
moment to refer to the authorities themselves. 
These notes were his own peculiar property. Infor- 
mation from them he was always ready to impart, 
and always cheerfully ; but that man was persona 
grata indeed to whom he was willing to entrust the 
manuscript notes themselves. It was my privilege 
to be allowed to use these notes in the freest man- 
ner in a study which occupied some years — the 
habits and customs of Colonial New York ; and I 
am glad to acknowledge that whatever continuity 
or precision I attained was due wholly to this as- 

13 



sistance. It was by this minute study that Mr. 
Kelby became early a living cyclopaedia of New 
York information ; and for many years before his 
death he was without question acknowledged to be 
the highest authority on all that concerns the topog- 
raphy and the history of this City. 

While every interval of duty in the rooms of the 
Society was thus profitably availed of, this was by 
no means the limit of Mr. Kelby's study. The ac- 
quisition of the fine collection of English literature 
made by the late Dr. Hawkes gave opportunity for 
a wider range of reading ; and as the young man's 
home was in the building of which he was the cus- 
todian, his evenings were usually spent in drinking 
deep draughts from that well of language pure and 
undefiled, the^ English classics. The drama espe- 
cially interested him. Plays, whether written or 
acted, were a never-failing joy. Not the sensa- 
tional drama, but the good old English comedies 
which then found an interpretation by that admira- 
ble school of actors which the Wallacks, father and 
son, brought together — a band of choice spirits of 
whom Jefferson is perhaps the last living represent- 
ative. Of books of travel young Mr. Kelby was 
especially fond. With every published record of 
American exploration or adventure he was familiar, 
and his interest was by no means confined to those 
of this continent. In these evenings of reading he 
first made acquaintance with the fascinating remi- 
niscences which have come down to us of social 
New York ; the early quaint relations of Denton, 
Wooley, Lodwick, Miller, and of Kalm ; and later 
the graphic pages of Duer and Benson intro- 
duced him to the New York of the close of the Co- 

14 



lonial period ; of Miller and Mitchell to that of the 
first quarter of the century. Those of King and of 
Francis gave an insight into the manners and cus- 
toms of the entire first half of this century ; while 
the manuscript of de Simitiere opened a window- 
on the time when the site of the present Astor 
House was a race-course, when the Colonial Dames 
shopped in Hanover Square, and the Broadway 
was gay with coaches panelled with the arms of the 
gentry— the ship of the Livingstons, the burning 
castle of the Morrisses, the lances of the de Lanceys. 

The rooms of this Society have always been the 
resort of those who have a genuine love for New 
York. Representative among those, and retaining 
many of the characteristics of their forefathers, were 
John Romeyn Brodhead, the learned historian of 
the New Netherlands ; Mr, Gulian C, Verplanck, 
accomplished gentleman and scholar ; the Duyc- 
kincks, and the late President of the Society, Mr. 
Frederic de Peyster. With all of these Mr. Kelby 
was personally acquainted, and from their lips he 
learned the rudiments of his knowledge of the inner 
life of their Holland forefathers ; and amono- his 
friends he counted Brevoort, de Lancey, Emmet, 
Andrews, Moreau, and Johnston. He was in close 
correspondence also with Hildeburn and Stone, of 
Philadelphia, whose lives were given up to historic 
labor. 

Later it was his good fortune to attract the at- 
tention and acquire the friendship of Mr. Richard 
E. Mount, a stanch friend of the Society. Of an 
old New York family of English origin, which re- 
mained in the City during the interesting period 
when it was the head-quarters of the British Army, 

15 



Mr. Mount was in every sense a typical New- 
Yorker, a fine example of that English race which 
ruled the New York Province from the day when 
the doughty Governor Stuyvesant retired from the 
fort at the Bowling Green to his Bowerie Farm 
(on which this Society's building now stands) to 
that day when the British commanders evacuated 
the City in November, 1783, when New York, pass- 
ing from her limited Colonial influences, entered 
upon her metropolitan career. One finds in the 
history of the City three distinct periods : the Dutch, 
the English — or, from its mixture of Dutch and 
English population, it may be called the Knicker- 
bocker — and the third, the strictly American period, 
when, after the Revolution, the settlement of a 
large New England population gave it a new and 
somewhat changed direction. It was the develop- 
ment of this later New York in which Mr. Kelby 
took an unfailing interest ; for while it is true that 
his studies were, in the main, of the Colonial times, 
his love was for the New York of the present, and 
his pride was its increasing prosperity and power. 
It was the chimera of his hope to combine the 
history of the old and the new in a colossal work 
in which the story of every ward of the City should 
be told, each in a great illustrated quarto, with 
portraits of the magnates in every sphere of its life 
and pictures of all the celebrated buildings, old and 
new — a work which he acknowledged would de- 
mand the co-operation of a corps of writers, clerks, 
and artists, but which he thought, in the increasing 
magnitude of the city, might be carried out by 
some great publishing house with honor and profit. 
His friend, Mr. Mount, was the last of the suc- 

16 



cession of the great law firm of the Alexanders, 
whose founder, James Alexander, was one of that 
famous Whig triumvirate which led the Liberty 
party of the last century — Livingston, Morris, Alex- 
ander, As such, Mr. Mount came into the owner- 
ship of the old legal library ; and it is interesting 
here to state that the priceless copy of Bradford's 
edition of the laws of New York, which be- 
longed to James Alexander, came to this Society 
through the generosity of the Mount family. Of 
robust habit and fond of out-door life, but like the 
true New Yorker, always preferring a pavement to 
green fields, Mr. Mount was familiar with every 
landmark of the City's history. Much of this had 
already faded in the lapse of time and the constant 
evolutions of the City and of every form of its life. 
It was the delight of the friends to revive the for- 
gotten lore, to separate the quaint truth from its 
ornament of myth and legend, and to reconstruct 
the past — not an easy task, when the indifference 
of the busy and shifting population is held in mind. 
To this association of interest Mr. Kelby brought 
the knowledge derived from the study of newspa- 
pers and maps, Mr. Mount his family traditions and 
the results of personal research. Together they ex- 
plored every point of topographical and local inter- 
est of the Dutch and Colonial periods. Even of 
those thus brought to light but few now remain. 

Although I have been a member of the Society from 
1848, my own intimacy with Mr. Kelby only began 
in the year 1867, when engaged in the editing of the 
Colonial Records of the New York Chamber of Com- 
merce. This work included biographical sketches 
of every one of the members of that institution, 

17 



from 1768 to 1783. It was prepared in the rooms 
of this Library. As it was in the direct line of that 
class of research in which Mr. Kelby was engaged, he 
took the greatest interest in its progress ; and it was 
then that I first became acquainted with the extent 
and the variety and the minuteness of his informa- 
tion. On my return to the City from some years' 
residence abroad, this daily companionship was re- 
newed. It was then that Mr. Kelby opened to me 
his store of countless notes, his indices to the news- 
paper files, and aroused in me a passion for the 
Colonial history of our City — a City in which I am 
proud to say I was born ; and through Mr. Kelby 
I became the daily companion of Mr. Mount, a com- 
panionship which ripened into a friendship which 
was only ended by his death. 

Without Mr. Kelby this Library can never be to 
me personally the same. For me he was its " in- 
forminof soul." It cannot be otherwise than that 
this is the feeling of each and all of those who look 
to this Library as the source of their information. 
Of these alcoves Mr. Kelby was the " familiar 
spirit." The classification and arrangement of its 
books having been made by himself, he was the 
easy master of its details ; and a mere suggestion to 
him that one was engaged on any special topic of 
American history was met by a display of volumes 
covering the entire subject. He had the true bibli- 
ographic memory — a topical memory — which knew 
the nature of books from their juxtaposition, and 
had an intuitive perception of their contents from 
their relation ; so that he would be quite sure that 
on such and such shelves, and in such and such 
bindings, would be found matter relating to the 

18 



subject under enquiry, though without always a dis- 
tinct idea of the particular matter itself; a knowl- 
edge, if not of the thing to be found, at least certain 
as to the place where it was to be found, if at all — 
a peculiar instinct which only he who has lived 
among books can understand. He was in every 
sense a bookman. To the erudition of the libra- 
rian, he added the love of books as such, indepen- 
dent of their contents. He revelled in the laro-e 
paper editions, with their uncut edges, their creamy 
page, their clean-cut type, and the abundant margin. 
He loved their outward dress as well as the inner 
form. It was pleasing to note the physical satis- 
faction with which he would caress with affectionate 
touch the soft, warm bindings of choice volumes, 
and an instruction to watch the careful tenderness 
with which he would cut the fresh leaves. These 
are traits which are not always met with even in the 
most scholarly men. 

Mr. Kelby did not become the Librarian of the 
Society until 1893 ; but for more than a quarter of 
a century preceding, although nominally the Assist- 
ant Librarian and Custodian of the institution, he 
was in fact the Librarian. The reasons for this 
anomaly are easily understood. Married in 1864, he 
had given hostages to fortune. When Mr. Moore 
withdrew, in 1876, from this Society, to take charge 
of Mr. Lenox's collection, the office of Librarian was 
not only tendered but pressed upon Mr. Kelby ; 
but he had seen the dangers of an elective office, 
which the post of Librarian is in this institution, while 
that of Assistant, being dependent on the Hoard of 
Trustees, is not subject to elective caprice or in- 
trigue. Each one of the nominal Librarians who suc- 

19 



ceeded Mr. Moore was a personal friend of Mr. 
Kelby, and no one of them would for a moment 
have thought of interfering in any manner with his 
technical duties or service. It is fortunate for the 
institution that in Mr. Robert H. Kelby, the brother 
of our late friend, now for thirty years in the em- 
ploy of this Society, the Library is sure of an ad- 
mirable successor to this office. For years this 
gentleman has had the training and advice of his 
brother. He has card-catalof^ued the entire Li- 
brary, and is familiar with its arrangement. With- 
out his aid the enquiring historical student would 
be as much at sea among our alcoves as a sailor 
without a pilot in a strange port. The routine of 
the Library is extremely onerous. Although the 
institution has a General Secretary and a Corre- 
sponding Secretary, the duty of reply to the endless 
requestsTor information from genealogical and his- 
torical students in all parts of the country, though 
not precisely within his province, falls upon the 
Librarian ; and this kind of request has enormously 
increased since the organization of the various pa- 
triotic societies which have sprung into existence 
during the last quarter of a century. The generous 
gift of a fine collection of genealogies, with a fund 
for its support and extension, made by Mr. Phoenix, 
added a new department to the Library, in which 
Mr. Kelby took a great interest and pride. In ad- 
dition to this correspondence, there is requisite a 
constant daily examination of the catalogues of 
booksellers and book auctioneers at home and 
abroad. Nothing that was rare touching on Amer- 
ican history, and especially on New York history, 
escaped the expert eye of our late friend ; and such 

20 



was the confidence In his judgment that some purse 
was always open to defi*ay the cost of any purchase 
he might suggest. 

His expert knowledge was well known, and his 
presence at any auction sale of books was notice 
of itself that something rare was to be offered. 
Yet he had self-control enough not to betray his 
desires, and always acquired the object of his pur- 
suit, unless the price exceeded his limit of value. 
But he rarely let anything escape him that was 
needed to stop a gap in our New York titles. He 
was on terms of intimacy with the noted booksellers, 
Francis, father and son, and Woodward — as also 
with our associate member, Sabin, whose knowledge 
of books is not surpassed by that of any one in this 
country. He took the greatest pains to complete 
the collection of Gaine's Almanacs of the Colonial 
period ; and I cannot forget the joy with which he 
received from me the gift to the Library of a con- 
secutive series of the Revolutionary time — volumes 
which had been the property of one of the sextons 
of Old Trinity, and contained some curious burial 
notes and quaint pencil sketches of the city on the 
fly - leaves. He also completed the collection of 
the City directories, from the first issue of 1786 to 
the present date. 

He was ever on the lookout for additions to the 
map and chart collection, and that of views of the 
City. The scarcity of early views of New York is 
a drawback to the student of its local life. The 
earliest known view is in the possession of this 
Society. It is an original drawing of New Amster- 
dam, made by Laurens Hermanz Block on board the 
ship Lydia, presented to the Society by Mr. Det- 

21 



mold. The Burgis engraving of the City in 17 17, a 
large picture, was entirely unknown until 1892, when 
Mr. Kelby met with a copy, and discovered by com- 
parison that Bakewell's view of 1746 was buf a re- 
production, with the dates changed, and a dedica- 
tion to Governor Clinton substituted for the original 
inscription to Governor Hunter. David Grim's plan 
of the City, 1 743-1 744, as well as a view showing the 
extent of the fires in 1776 and 1778, were drawn by 
him from recollection. This interesting character 
lived in the City during the Revolution, and kept 
the Hessian coffee-house. There is a fine portrait 
of him in the possession of his family which should 
be added to our gallery of old New Yorkers. There 
is still another fine oil painting of New York, with 
the British shipping in the Harbor, in the possession 
of Mr. Goldsbrow Banyer, who is also the owner of 
a curious diary of personal expenditure — an inher- 
itance from the British official whose name he bears. 
The earliest maps of the City are those of 1664, 
known as the Duke's and the NicoU's map of 1664- 
1668. Of the engraved maps, the Society has copies 
of the Bradford map of 1731, the Duyckinck map 
of 1755, the Montressor map of 1764, and the Rat- 
zer map of 1766. All of these have been of ser- 
vice in the preparation of the new colored ward 
maps, in which Mr. Kelby personally assisted. 
The Library has also Robertson's original water- 
colors of City views made in 1798, Burton's en- 
graved views of 1 83 1, and Peabody's views pub- 
lished in the same year. The view of New York 
and Brooklyn Heights in 1798, which belonged to 
the late J. Carson Brevort, was reproduced in one of 
the City Manuals, where also may be found numer- 

22 



ous views and sketches of buildings, and scenes at 
various periods in our history, from rare originals or 
engravings. 

The centennial of American Independence, in 
1876, opened a new field of interest to New York 
historians. Those of us who had taken interest in 
the story of the Revolution were painfully aware of 
the slurs which it has been the fashion of historical 
writers to cast upon the action of New York and 
New Yorkers in the long struggle for independence, 
during the greater part of which it was the mis- 
fortune of this City to be the military head-quarters 
of the British forces. The approach of the centen- 
nial of events of which this City and this State were 
the theatre seemed an occasion to set our New 
England friends right, and to show them that the 
Massachusetts colony had neither monopoly of the 
patriotic spirit of the country, nor yet just claim to 
priority in resistance to oppression. Already Mr. 
Dawson, an eccentric man, but a most painstaking 
searcher after historic truth, had set forth the claim 
of New York as the first to have drawn or shed 
blood in open resistance to British oppression. He 
had shown, in his paper on the Sons of Liberty, that 
Golden Hill, not far from our City Hall, was in Janu- 
ary, 1770, the scene of a bloody struggle between 
the Sons of Liberty and the Sixteenth Regiment of 
British Foot, who had wantonly destroyed the 
Liberty Pole erected on the New York commons 
to commemorate the repeal of the Stamp Act ; 
while the Boston massacre, a street struggle of the 
same order, was not till the month of March suc- 
ceeding. In 1868 the Chamber of Commerce, with 
which this Society has ever been in close alliance, 

23 



celebrated the beginning of the one hundredth year 
of its existence. On this occasion the claim of New- 
York to have originated the Stamp Act Association 
of 1765 (the non-importing association), which, par- 
ticipated in by the commercial trading ports of the 
several colonies, brought about the repeal of the 
obnoxious legislation, was asserted and proved. 
Moreover, it was then shown conclusively that the 
determining cause of the meeting of the first Con- 
tinental Congress of 1774 was the demand of the 
Committee of Correspondence of New York for 
the delegation of a body, not only charged with the 
framing of acts for the regulation of trade, "but 
clothed with power to enforce those regulations." 
The documents on which these claims rest are in 
the keeping of the Society, as also the files of Eng- 
lish newspapers which confirm them. With these 
Mr. Kelby was familiar, and he took a lively interest 
in this matter. 

In 1876, at the request of this Society, I prepared 
an elaborate sketch of the Progress of New York 
in a century — a study which covered several months 
of labor, in which I was constantly aided by the 
elaborate notes and the advice of our friend. This 
paper was printed by the Society, and has taken its 
place in the line of local sketches already alluded 
to. I mention this as one of the results of Mr. 
Kelby's labors. In a word, my relation to the work 
was that of the advocate who pleads a cause on the 
brief prepared by the work and research of the at- 
torney in the case. 

The centennial of the Revolutionary period be- 
gan a new phase in Mr. Kelby's career. Up to that 
period his life had been circumscribed, and his asso 

24 



ciations restricted to those brought to him in the 
daily routine of the Hbrary. The celebration of 
events of which the soil of the City and of the State 
of New York was the scene directly interested Mr. 
Kelby, and forced him from his modest retirement 
into a larger circle of acquaintance. In this new 
environment, while he retained his native modesty 
and dislike of personal assertion, he nevertheless 
took the position to which his attainments entitled 
him, conducting himself with quiet dignity in this 
new sphere. But for this experience he would per- 
haps have never been willing to accept the post of 
Librarian of the Society, which has always involved 
some social oblig-ations. 

The idea of each and every one of the New York 
centennials originated in this Society, and the ar- 
rangements for them were made here. These in- 
cluded an exhaustive history of each event, and a 
careful examination of the scene of its occurrence. 
The first of these was the anniversary of the Battle 
of Harlem. The precise location and course of this 
action, in which Knowlton fell, was the subject of a 
long and animated dispute. The ground was gone 
over by the committee in charge, together with Mr. 
John Jay, who was the orator of the day. They 
were accompanied by Mr. Kelby, and the site defi- 
nitely established on the Vandewater or Bloom- 
ingdale Heights. The rugged point from which 
the Black Watch sounded defiance across the 
Hollow way to the Continentals upon the Point of 
rocks — as Lewis Morris, Jr., relates — was as yet 
in all its native roughness; and the Harlem Flats 
which the Heights overlooked, now a compact 
mass of buildings, were then, September, 1876, 

25 



a broad patch of market-gardens, with here and 
there an isolated farm-house. And, to mark the 
changes in New York, I may add that a quarter of 
a century before I had seen the same flats and the 
adjacent marshes darkened by the clouds of duck 
and wild fowl as they swept southward in their an- 
nual migrations. Mr. Kelby supplied the brief from 
which Mr. Jay prepared his scholarly address, and 
later he added an exhaustive appendix to the ac- 
count of the proceedings published by the Society. 
The accuracy of the site was again questioned. 
The cumulative proof brought forward by Mr. Kel- 
by definitely settled the controversy ; but, with his 
usual tenacity, he did not rest content until the cor- 
rectness of his verdict was clinched by the setting 
up of a bronze tablet at Columbia University, at the 
junction of the Boulevard and 117th Street, with an 
inscription reciting that it was " to commemorate 
the battle won on that site." This was done at his 
instance by the Sons of the Revolution. It was 
somewhere in this neighborhood, Mr. Kelby held, 
that Knowlton and Leitch fell in the early morning; 
and here it was that Washington stopped his main 
advance on the retreat of the British within their 
lines below the Plains. Mr. Kelby's views as to 
the place of the " buckwheat field " have been since 
sustained by Professor Johnston, in his Battle of 
Harlem Heights. In October of this same year, at 
the invitation of the Westchester Historical Society 
and of Mr. Edward F. de Lancey, Mr. Kelby at- 
tended the celebration of the Battle of White Plains, 
of which he had made a careful study. 

In September, 1877, the Battle of Bemis Heights, 
the most important of those contests known as the 

26 



Battle of Saratoga, was celebrated by the citizens 
of Saratoga County on the scene of the action, 
under the shadow of the trees where Morgan's 
riflemen turned the tide of contest. On this occa- 
sion I had the honor of delivering the historical ad- 
dress, and Mr. Kelby accompanied me to Saratoga. 
This paper was prepared in these rooms, and Mr. 
Kelby was my active and efficient assistant in gath- 
ering the details ; it was later published under the 
title of the " Burgoyne Campaign.'.' 

In 1879 Mr. Kelby was greatly interested in the 
anniversary of Mad Anthony Wayne's victori- 
ous assault of Stony Point, and was a guest on 
that occasion. Wayne was the grandson of one of 
the officers of William of Orange at the Battle of 
the Boyne, and Mr. Kelby was proud of him as a 
representative of the Scotch-Irish race; indeed, the 
Revolutionary characters for whom he had a special 
affection were of this stock : James Duane, mem- 
ber of the first Continental Congress and first 
Mayor of New York after the Revolution, and the 
two brothers, George and James Clinton, alike dis- 
tinguished in the council and in the field. The last 
three of these had in his eyes the additional merit 
of being New York born. Next to these in his 
admiration was Alexander McDougall, Scotch born, 
but whose life was spent in New York ; the Amer- 
ican Wilkes of the Stamp Act period, he later 
acquired military fame as a Brigadier-General of 
the New York line. 

In the year 1880 Mr. Kelby was more than ever 
busy in this favorite field. Tappan was visited, 
and the precise location of Washington's camp 
and of the place of Andre's execution in front of 

27 



the lines were definitely settled ; and the historical 
material used by the local committee was furnished 
by him. In this summer also he visited Pompton, 
in New Jersey, and travelled that inner road be- 
hind the Ramapo Hills screened by which Wash- 
ington marched and manoeuvred his forces from 
King's Ferry to Morristown. Mr. Kelby's delight 
in these outings was almost childish in its exuber- 
ance. An ardent lover of nature, his enjoyment of 
this beautiful country was heightened by its historic 
associations. He had prepared himself for this 
journey by a careful study of the maps of Erskine 
and De Witt, priceless possessions of this Society. 
Erskine was the official geographer of the Conti- 
nental Army ; De Witt succeeded him. On this 
occasion Mr. Kelby visited the remains of Camp- 
bell's famous tavern of the Revolution, and those 
also of the old Ringwood iron-furnace, the chief 
source of munition supply to Washington's troops. 
This furnace was worked by Peter Hasenclever, 
toward the middle of the last century, for a Lon- 
don company. Robert Erskine came out to take 
charge of them in 1772. Espousing the American 
cause, he was appointed geographer to the army. 
His surveys, 1776- 1780, were given to the Society 
in 1845 by Mr. Richard Varick De Witt. He died 
in 1780, and a monument was raised to him by 
Washington's orders at Ringwood. The old resi- 
dence on the Erskine Manor at the furnace is now 
the country-seat of Mr. Abram S. Hewitt, whose 
daughters extended a graceful hospitality to Mr. 
Kelby and entertained him with a recital of the 
traditions of the place. According to legend, old 
Peter Hasenclever lived in high state, dining to the 

28 



music of an imported band. The ladies of his 
family, in satin and brocade, walked the alleys of 
the well-ordered garden ; and it is said their ghosts 
walk them now, arrayed, of course, in the self-same 
satin and brocade, save one, who, in white attire, 
threads the intricacies of what was once the o-arden 
Maze. East Jersey was one blaze of golden apples 
this year, and the hills were beginning to sport 
their autumn coat of many colors, much to our 
friend's delight. Still another series of excursions 
this year was to the site of the allied camps in 
Westchester County. Some original French me- 
moirs, with carefully drawn and colored maps of the 
country, had fallen into our hands, and were the 
means of re-establishing the position of the opposing 
forces which confronted each other across the Har- 
lem when Washington disconcerted Sir Henry Clin- 
ton by his feint on the defences of New York Island. 
In the autumn of 1880 Mr. Kelby was the guest of 
Mr. Augustus Van Cortlandt at his home, historic 
Cordandt House, now maintained as a museum 
and Colonial depositary in Cortlandt Park. The 
visit had an historic purpose. Its object was to 
discover the remains of the friendly Stockbridge 
Indians, who were massacred by Tarleton's dra- 
goons, in July, 1778, at a point on the old manor 
which has since retained the name of Indian Bridee. 
The old sachem chief, Ninham, was later found 
dead of his wounds in the Cortlandt fields hard by. 
Some of the wounded took refuge in the houses of 
the De Voes. The visiting party was accompanied 
by the well-known antiquary, Mr. Thomas F. De 
Voe, a descendant of the family. But it was found 
impossible to locate the precise spot of burial, the 

29 



stones by which it had been marked in the Indian 
field having been scattered or removed in the sub- 
sequent changes in the features of the land. The 
late Mr. De Voe was a constant student in this 
Library. His Market-Book is full of historic infor- 
mation about old New York. He was a orreat 
friend and admirer of Mr. Kelby. 

In 1881 Mr. Kelby took a lively interest in the re- 
ception of the officers and gentlemen delegated by 
the French Government to attend the ceremonies of 
the Yorktown Centennial. With this function the 
New York Historical Society was but indirectly 
concerned. The New York courtesies were ex- 
tended by a commission named by the Governor 
of the State, of which our honored President, Mr. 
King, was the chairman. But Mr. Kelby had the 
satisfaction of exhibitino- to the disting-uished g-uests 
of the nation, and especially to the descendants of 
the very men who fought at Yorktown, the numer- 
ous mementoes of the services of their ancestors 
which adorn this collection. The representatives 
of the family of Lafayette were peculiarly interested. 
The illustrious Marquis was received by this Soci- 
ety in 1824, and sat beneath the portrait, taken of 
himself in 1784, in the very uniform of the Light 
Infantry in which he stormed the British works at 
Yorktown. The portrait was presented to this 
Society by Colonel Ebenezer Stevens (who served 
as Lafayette's Chief of Artillery in his expedition 
against Arnold) for whom the picture was painted. 

The centennial anniversaries culminated in that 
memorable outbreak of patriotic sentiment which 
marked the celebration of the final evacuation of 
New York City, November, 1883. The idea of 

30 



this celebration originated in this Society. It was 
carried out by an imposing committee, in which this 
Society, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Mu- 
nicipal Government of the City were joined, and in 
which other important institutions participated. 
The proceedings on this occasion were printed 
with elaborate historic notes, to which Mr. Kelby 
made notable contribution. The various localities 
were visited and the traditions gathered. Among 
these localities was the old Van Cortlandt manor- 
house at Croton, the residence of Colonel Philip 
Van Cortlandt, who commanded a famous New 
York regiment of Continentals, and who accompa- 
nied Washington on his entrance to the City at the 
time of its evacuation. 

Mr. Kelby was most hospitably received. Mrs. 
Pierre Van Cortlandt on this occasion loaned to 
him the valuable collection of the Glenn manu- 
scripts, which were hers by inheritance. Colonel 
Glenn was the Quartermaster-General of the North- 
ern Department during the Revolution. Among 
these was found a letter of Captain Ten Eyck, 
written at his post at the mouth of the Tappan 
Creek, which recited the interview between Wash- 
ington and Carleton. This interview, at which the 
arrangements for the evacuation of the city were 
determined by the two Commanders, took place on 
board the British man-of-war Greyhound, in the 
stream. The letter stated that Washinorton re- 
ceived a salute of seventeen guns — no doubt the 
first military salute ever given by the British to an 
American Commander-in-Chief. 

The literature pertaining to Evacuation Day had 
already, in 1870, been gathered by Mr. Kelby, and 

31 



published in the Manual of the Common Council 
for that year. It was later discovered that the 
official British documents connected with this event, 
and the manuscript minutes of the negotiations be- 
tween Washington and Sir Guy Carleton, are pre- 
served in the fifty-six volumes of the papers of the 
Commanders-in-Chief in America, in the Library of 
the Royal Institution in London. The officers of 
this institution kindly answered enquiries as to many 
points. It was always the hope of Mr. Kelby that 
he might visit London and examine these and other 
documents relating to our local history. He was 
wont to say that in the British archives lay rich 
nuggets of New York history. It is a wonder that 
the State of New York has not obtained ere this 
copies of this material. 

The founding of the Society of the Sons of the 
Revolution was an outcome of this celebration. Its 
idea had been conceived and formulated in 1875 in 
these rooms, and its purpose and its limitations dis- 
cussed and agreed upon with our late friend, who 
was its first Registrar. He early saw the great ad- 
vantage that would accrue to historical and genea- 
logical societies from the impulse given by an in- 
stitution, the conditions of membership in which 
involved a certain amount of enquiry in each of 
these lines — a discernment which has been amply 
justified in the success of this and the numerous 
societies of kindred spirit and purpose which have 
been since formed, until now there is not a period 
of our history which is not represented and its 
study followed by some special institution. 

The centennial of the Constitution of 1789, and 
of the inaucfuration of Washington as the first 

32 



President under this instrument, was the last of 
these national celebrations. The Society was am- 
ply represented in its many Committees, and Mr. 
Kelby's knowledge was in constant demand when- 
ever accuracy was required. And this again was 
the occasion for a Sketch of the City of New York 
at that period, which was compiled by Mr. Thomas 
E. V. Smith within these walls, in great measure 
from Mr. Kelby's material, Mr. Smith's contribu- 
tion is invaluable to the student. 

With the magnificent reception of the descend- 
ants of Columbus, in 1893, this Society had no im- 
mediate concern. It was especially devised and 
carried out under the auspices and at the expense 
of the Chamber of Commerce alone ; but I well re- 
member the satisfaction with which Mr. Kelby re- 
ceived the request from the Chamber to name a 
committee to assist in extending the formal welcome 
to the great Admiral's representative, a function 
performed by your honorable President with his 
usual felicity and grace. 

I have endeavored to show that in his pleasures 
and his tastes, as in his studies and occupations, 
New York was never forgotten. His walks in the 
City or its suburbs, his occasional outings in the 
summer season, were always turned to gain some 
addition to his topographical knowledge — in the 
spring to Fort Lee, on the Palisades, where the 
apple blossoms and lilacs added color and fragrance 
to the charm of the landscape — in the autumn to the 
Jersey plains, full of Revolutionary reminiscences. 
And he carried this passion with him always. 
The only table - talk which pleased him at the 
social board was of New York; the only table- 

33 



delicacies which won his favor were the product of 
New York forests, New York fields, or New York 
waters. Simple in his tastes as he was in his hab- 
its, he had the true New York love of fish and 
shell-fish of all kinds. The glories of the great 
South Bay, with its inexhaustible supply of ocean 
products, was a theme which always aroused his 
enthusiasm. Blue Point oysters fresh from their 
native beds, and lobsters from the Hell Gate rocks, 
were his delight ; but always at first hand ; cold 
storage was his abhorrence. And these he pre- 
ferred when served in the open air, at one of the little 
riverside gardens to be found on the Harlem River 
or on some of the upper wharves ; and most enjoyed 
in the company of some kindred spirit, some New 
Yorker to the manner born. And for his outings 
a clam-bake at Kingsbridge on the Harlem, at Stam- 
ford or Little Neck on the Sound, with the Long 
Island poet, or on the clear waters of Shinnecock 
Bay. He loved to dwell on the stories which have 
come down to us of the turtle feasts of the Colony 
days, and the massive dinners which Sam Fraunces 
or Willett served at their taverns, with the invaria- 
ble accompaniment of punch and madeira, of church- 
warden pipes and October ale. In practice, how- 
ever, he restricted his indulgence to a glass or two 
of our native product — Catawba or California wine. 
His career was marked by ceaseless industry, an 
unslaking thirst for knowledge, a thoroughness in 
research, and a precision in the statement of the 
results of his examination. He cared very little for 
the opinions or judgments of others on any subjects 
within the reach of his own study — 3. trait in which 
he again showed the characteristics of his race. 

34 



His thoroughness in detail is shown in the volumes 
of the Publications of this Society, compiled and ed- 
ited by him, and in the ample manner in which 
they are indexed : the Kemble papers, the Burgh- 
ers and Freemen of New York, and the New York 
muster-rolls, 1755 to 1765, the period of the Old 
French War. In these last titles he exhausted 
every source of original material, so that they are 
a model in their line. He also indexed the Deane 
papers, which were carefully edited by our worthy 
friend, Mr. Charles Isham, who was at the time 
Librarian of the Society. And as an Index- 
maker he had no equal, unless Dr. O'Callaghan, 
who was a master in this difficult branch of 
editorial labor. To the third volume of this 
series he contributed a mass of material on old 
New York and Trinity Church, drawn from the 
Colonial newspapers — a curious nucleus of local and 
family history. And to Valentine's Manual of the 
Common Council of the City of New York, a hete- 
rogeneous mass of valuable local information, he 
furnished several series of consecutive extracts : the 
troubles of the Liberty Pole, privateering, etc. In 
1876 he contributed to the Evening Mail 3. weekly 
series of consecutive extracts from the newspapers, 
printed memoirs, and letters of corresponding date 
of the last century, giving a daily account of occur- 
rences in the City and of exterior news as received. 
These were accompanied by an editorial column 
presenting a digest of the notes. The series ran 
from March to November, closing with an account 
of the fall of Fort Washington. In the course of 
this labor he found occasion to correct many popular 
errors. • It was shown that Washinofton's New York 

35 



City head-quarters during this battle-summer were 
at the Mortier mansion, later known as Richmond 
Hill, and that the claim that No. i Broadway was 
ever thus honored could not be sustained ; although 
it served as barracks, and as a head-quarters of Put- 
nam when in command of the City. 

Besides these printed results of his industry and 
research, he left a manuscript history of the islands 
in the Harbor of New York, every one of which he 
had personally visited ; genealogies of the Stuyve- 
sant, Livingston, and Astor families, and copious 
notes to the inscriptions in Trinity Churchyard, 
each of which had at some period been subjected 
to his critical examination ; and also notes on the 
Hallock and Newton families, made during a sum- 
mer vacation on Long Island. 

With his thorough knowledge of the Colonial 
period, he could point out the sites of the town res- 
idences and of the Island country-seats of the early 
magnates, and of every person who contributed to the 
fame and honor of the City. One notable instance 
of this precise knowledge was his location of the 
site where William Bradford set up his first print- 
ing-press in this Province, in 1693. The Society 
celebrated this event in 1893, and a bronze tablet 
marks the spot at No. 81 Pearl Street; a second 
tablet on the southeast corner of the New York 
Cotton Exchange designates the place where Brad- 
ford printed the first newspaper in the city, the New 
York Gazette, in 1725. A copy of the first year's 
issue of this paper, missing from our own file, is 
preserved in the New York Society Library. It 
seems a pity that such a separation should continue. 
Another instance of his exactness of investigation 

36 



was the proof that Burns' long room, where the non- 
importation agreement was signed in 1765, was the 
long assembly-room of the Province Arms. This 
tavern on the Broadway was then kept by the peri- 
patetic Burns, who had left his Coffee-house, which 
stood on the site of the later Atlantic Gardens, and 
which has been erroneously claimed as the scene of 
this event by authorities well versed in New York 
matters. And still another and more recent instance 
was his demonstration, beyond all reasonable doubt, 
that the patriot spy, Nathan Hale, was captured while 
attempting to cross the British lines at the Harlem 
Flats, and certainly that the place of execution was 
the British artillery park near the old Dove Tavern, 
at the five-mile stone on the Kingsbridge Road. 
The exact location Mr. Kelby stated, in his let- 
ter published in the New York Sunday Herald 
of November 26, 1893, as west of the Post Road 
on Third Avenue, between Sixty-sixth and Sixty- 
seventh Streets. 

Mr. Kelby took a great interest in that quaint 
department of historical literature known as Notes 
and Queries. He was well acquainted with both the 
English and American series, and was a generous 
contributor of hard questions and answers. Abroad 
the lovers of this" succinct style of information have 
a special organ, but with us it has been merely a de- 
partment of historical magazines. Scattered through 
the volumes of the several series of this character 
may be found his contributions, over either his initials 
W. K. or his favorite pseudonym " Petersfield," as- 
sumed from the location of the Society on the farm 
of old Governor Peter Stuyvesant, Peter's Field. 
I should be ungrateful, indeed, were I to omit to 



mention the infinite obligation I was personally 
under to Mr. Kelby during the six years that I 
edited the Magazine of American History. This 
magazine, founded by me in 1877, was the outcome 
of long consideration between Mr. Kelby and my- 
self. At this time he was, indeed, " my companion, 
my guide, and mine own familiar friend." During 
the period of my connection with it, he was my 
constant coadjutor ; and the Notes and Queries de- 
partment was entirely under his direction. This 
magazine, during the six years referred to, was 
kept within strictly historical lines. It later drifted 
into what it was hoped would be more profitable 
because more popular channels, and met the fate 
which all special magazines must expect which are 
tempted to such change of course. Personally, I 
regret not having delayed the severing of my con- 
nection with it until the close of 1883, that I might 
have completed the printing of the mass of Revolu- 
tionary matter which I had gathered — a collection 
which was at once dispersed, and is now lost sight 
of. In this regret Mr. Kelby shared, although he very 
properly maintained his interest in and continued his 
contributions to the publication which succeeded it. 
The career of Mr. Kelby as the Custodian and 
Librarian of this Society has been my theme ; in- 
deed, were I to out-step these limits, I should hardly 
know when or where to stop in my reminiscences 
of him. Justice to this theme has necessarily in- 
volved an account in some detail of the subjects 
which were his life interest and his life study. I 
have dwelt passingly upon his wonderfully retentive 
memory, by which he held in ready grasp all he had 
gathered in his wide field of reading and research, 

38 



I have mentioned his unflagging industry ; yet with 
this constant apphcation he was not easily disturbed. 
His favorite place was in the fore of the Library ; 
but no matter in what engaged, or how engrossed 
in his labor, he would always turn aside from his 
occupation to answer any query or bring down any 
volume which was asked of him. And such was 
his power of self-abstraction that these interruptions 
never interfered with the continuity of his work. 
Those not practically familiar with the duties of a 
Librarian can hardly credit the extent of crass igno- 
rance, of even the rudiments of the subjects on which 
they seek information, which applicants constantly 
display. Yet even to these he was forbearing, and 
I fail to remember when he showed either impatience 
or annoyance in his manner. To this indulgence 
to the casual enquirer he added, in the case of the 
genuine student, a friendly interest in the object of 
his research. 

Mr. Kelby, on the 5th of August, 1864, married 
Margaret Wallace, who was, like himself, of Scotch- 
Irish extraction. She was of a most gentle and re- 
fined nature. She bore him three children : Mary 
V. and Thomas Kelby, who survived him, and a 
daughter who died young. 

Mr. Kelby died on the 27th of July, 1898, in the 
fifty-seventh year of his age, and was buried in St. 
Michael's (Protestant Episcopal) Cemetery, Astoria, 
Long Island. 

I must close, much as I would like to linger on 
these tender memories of our friend, but not close 
without some personal tribute to his many admir- 
able traits. With something of womanly softness, 
he was plain of speech ; his conversation had an 

39 



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LB N '10 



old-time flavor. Domestic in his habits, he was a 
kind husband, an indulgent father. Of a reserved 
nature and a quiet composure of manner, rarely , 
ruffled, he was yet of warm feeling; and his attach- ' 
ments, though few, were lasting. Crippled by the 
narrowness of his early surroundings, it was not 
till middle life that his really broad nature had room 
for development. 

The pity of his death is that it was at the height 
of ^ his usefulness. Yet though cut off at the very 
prime of his intellectual vigor, he had already, by 
his tireless industry, contributed more to the sum 
of exact historical knowledge than most of those 
who have reached life's allotted span. Wherever 
that knowledge is esteemed and learning respected, 
wherever faithfulness to the highest order of his- 
toric truth is understood and valued, his death will 
be looked upon as a calamity. To those of us who 
were within the circle of his conversation and his 
friendship, it is a personal bereavement ; and his 
memory will be cherished as a personal heritage. 
Among these it is my privilege to be numbered. 
We must console ourselves for his loss in the mem- 
ory of what he was. " We shall not look upon his 
like again." 

In conclusion, I suggest that the painting of a 
portrait of Mr. Kelby be ordered for the gallery of 
the Society, with a tablet reciting his service, and 
as an inscription for it: 

WILLIAM KELBY 

LIBRARIAN 

WHO 

FOR FORTY-ONE YEARS FAITHFULLY SERVED 

THIS SOCIETY. 

1898 

" We shall not look upon his like again.'' 



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